spoting and ancient looking tiki mug from afar ,and as you approach it .it, it, turns out to be another one of those god dammned samurai mugs, or even worse the "oriental Bear one"I dunno maybe this subject has been done before but since there are so many new members who cares? ok so are mugs like the Krarate punch, sumo or samurai flip( whichever),and countless asian themed others that are very similar in glazes and color finishes as other old tiki mugs, which in turn leads an amateur collector as myself to beleive they could be Tiki, but then again for some strange reason I usually pass them up on almost a weekly basis when doing ma usual tiki thrift shopping rounds. what's the deal with these mugs? does anyone here collect them? where the hella did they come from? I feel like these mugs sole purpose is to trick people like me from a distance.

Yeah, I see those mugs all the time! Many of them are marked Benihana because they use them for drinks. Not tiki at all however, some of them (buddha, geisha) were once manufactured by Orchids of Hawaii.

I once picked up a couple of those sumo-flip mugs at a flea market, and they may not be tiki - but they hold almost twice the liquid as the average tiki mug. They are also pretty well designed, and keep cold drinks really cold. They aren't pretty, but they get the job done.

Last month I passed on the white Buddha (you know, the one with the straw hole in his belly?) at the local thrift store. He was marked $2.00. I already have one, and it never really thrilled me to begin with. That being said, there are some cool Asian themed mugs that I would buy. There are some green mugs with raised relief Buddhas or Chinese dragons that are kind of cool.....